Paper short abstract:

Local governance in Nepal emerged as critical factor in the country's post-conflict development. The paper examines the role of the national Local Governance and Community Development Programme, the shifting engagements of government, donors, local communities and citizens, and the lessons learned.

Paper long abstract:

The 2006 peace agreement ended 10 years of civil war in Nepal. A number of local government programmes were already in place, but had little significant impact due to the conflict. One programme, the Decentralized Finance and Development Programme, had continued to operate in some of the most conflict-affected districts. It became a basis for the Local Governance and Community Development Programme (LGCDP), launched nationally in 2008. LGCDP introduced an element of accountable local governance in a context of no elected local councils, multiple forms of social exclusion and economic inequality, fractured communities and major political divisions.

Donors played a critical role, but also demonstrated classic 'failings'; national politicians gave support, but also resisted changes that might undermine theirpolitical interests; political parties maneouvered for their own interests. Identity politics, politics of neighbouring countries, and structural weaknesses of the post-conflict economy added to the fragility of the country's political condition.

The paper suggests that while not providing a solution to post-conflict fragility, LGCDP introduced ways for local communities to mobilise and enter a political space of local government and facilitated aspirations and changes contributing to a stronger social contract. However,challenges remain not least due to elite politics as a new federal constitution is implemented and the vulnerabilities of an economy dependent on migrant workers' remittances.

The paper concludes by suggesting that lessons from LGCDP in Nepal have a global relevance, pointing to similar local governance experiences elsewhere. (The author recently worked in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ukraine.)

Paper Download (996 KB)

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on the experience of Global Partners Governance supporting political institutions in fragile MENA states, the paper argues for an adaptive, "politically agile" approach, focusing on local ownership and behaviour, and considers some of the challenges in implementing this approach.

Paper long abstract:

The importance of politics to effective international development work has increasingly been recognised, particularly when working in the highly complex and conflict-sensitive environments of fragile states. A variety of initiatives and publications have sought to find new ways of understanding and addressing the most intractable problems through projects that are 'politically-smart', locally driven, responsive to need and employ multiple entry-points. However, the principles that inform this approach now need to be more widely operationalised in the design, delivery and measurement of international assistance projects. Global Partners Governance has experience of working directly with political institutions in some of the most fragile environments, particularly in the MENA region. This paper draws out some insights from our experience of delivering 'politically agile programming', including the challenges of measuring impact and ensuring accountability for the use of resources.

Paper Download (2.1 MB)

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses how policies and interventions that seek to enable socio-economic recovery in fragile, post-conflict settings intersect with people's efforts to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, in complex, non-linear recovery trajectories.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses how policies and interventions that seek to enable socio-economic recovery in fragile, post-conflict settings intersect with people's efforts to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, in complex, non-linear recovery trajectories. Recovery settings tend to be characterised by a high density of aid interventions and involve arenas in which multiple actors (local citizens, aid actors, political actors) interact and negotiate the nature and direction of change. Yet, we still struggle to understand interventions in relation to the everyday realities of recovery. This paper aims to contribute to filling that gap. We build on the main lessons of a research programme on socio-economic recovery in fragile settings which brought together academic partners, NGOs and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to propose that:

• People play the key role in reconstructing their lives and finding ways to access markets, authorities and aid

• Recovery involves overt and covert contests over the prospects of development

• The micro-politics of recovery matter

• Institutions in fragile settings tend to acquire properties of rational institutions

• Aid actors are also socially embedded

These points will be illustrated with reference to a range of case studies ranging from Afghanistan to central America and the Great Lakes region. Our analysis brings in theoretical insights on the sociology of economic life, legal anthropology, and actor-oriented approaches to development.

Paper short abstract:

This research investigates post-earthquake community-led reconstruction as a mechanism to achieve democratic social transformation, by simultaneously contesting socio-economic inequalities and unjust power relations, and challenging weak responses from a state characterised by political fragility.

Paper long abstract:

Nepal is classified as a post-conflict fragile state, highly vulnerable to disaster risk and political instability. The 2015 earthquake caused significant loss of lives, housing and public infrastructure. While reconstruction from government and intergovernmental agencies has been slow, bureaucratic and lacking in empathy, seeds of innovation have been evident in community responses, at times facilitated by local NGOs and agencies. This paper is based on recent fieldwork in severely earthquake-affected districts in Nepal, to address the question: To what extent and in what ways can community-led reconstruction in post-earthquake Nepal lead to democratic social transformation? Social inequalities, for example gender and caste, have been challenged in contexts where communities have come together in emergency relief efforts, and community reconstruction committees have subsequently been formed targeting equal numbers of women and men. Land rights groups have organised to address the specific problems faced by the landless. The earthquake produced a social rupture as well as a geophysical one, and there is a discernible desire not to go back to the status quo ante, but to address existing social divisions and unjust power relations through the greater expression of marginalised groups. This paper examines the potential to transform disaster into opportunity, from the village-level upwards, through community-based reconstruction. This inclusive and local approach emerges not simply as self-help, but as transformative community self-organisation that seeks more equitable access to public services, a re-ordering of the relation with government and a confrontation of injustices and exclusions that deepen disaster risk, poverty and underdevelopment.

Paper short abstract:

While many important studies are exploring the impacts of migration on displaced people, this paper asks an equally important question: what happens to those who are left behind? This paper explores the gendered experience of reconstructing communities where men have become absent and its consequences for development practice.

Paper long abstract:

Demographic change is an important driver of social and political change throughout the world. Mass migration due to political or environmental instability continues to displace power within both macro and micro structures of society. More recently, we have seen the significance of these changes throughout the African continent. While many important studies explore the impacts of migration on emigrant and displaced people, this paper seeks to understand what happens to those who are left behind. Demographic change has historically been an important political phenomenon, political demography itself has largely been undervalued in political science. What is especially lacking in this discussion, however, is attention to how demographic changes can be gendered. Furthermore, it is critical to understand why these gendered changes are important for the stability and instability of political norms, expressions of power, notions of participation, and social equity as society adapts to demographic changes. This paper seeks to fill this void in the literature by investigating the political importance of gendered demographic change in rural communities in the Abda region of Morocco and Nyanza province, Kenya. These comparative case studies demonstrate that gendered demographic changes have important implications for what it means to participate socially, economically, and politically in village communities. Where power vacuums are created, new leaders emerge and new ways of engaging within social spaces are experimented with and adopted. The gendered ways in which these adaptations occur have important implications for sustainable development and social change in communities where men are becoming increasingly absent.

Paper short abstract:

Over the last 20 years, international policies and guidelines have been developed and widely adopted to ensure and promote conflict sensitive and gender-sensitive policies and programmes in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). The problem is that these methodologies and good practice guidelines are often not used adequately in practice in country programmes in actual FCAS contexts, even by well-intentioned aid agencies and NGOs. This paper reports on the findings of a recent collaboration by Oxfam GB, Saferworld and Bradford University to examining their practical experience in working in FCAS countries to identify key methodological and institutional weaknesses and contextual challenges and opportunities to overcome them.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last 20 years, international policies and guidelines have been developed and widely adopted to ensure and promote conflict sensitive and gender-sensitive policies and programmes in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). There is now relatively wide experience with applying such guidelines, and increased awareness of the importance of inter-relationships between uses of conflict and gender analyses. The problem is that these methodologies and good practice guidelines are often not used adequately in practice in actual FCAS contexts, even by well-intentioned aid agencies and NGOs. This paper reports on the findings of a recent collaboration by Oxfam GB, Saferworld and Bradford University (Dept of Peace Studies and International Development) to identify key methodological and institutional weaknesses and contextual challenges experienced when aiming to ensure use of conflict analyses and gender analyses in country programmes, and also in identifying opportunities to overcome them. The paper (and project) draws extensively from the practical experience of Oxfam GB, Saferworld and University of Bradford in specific FCAS country contexts. Issues concerning inter-relationships between gender and conflict analyses, and the extent to which understandings of fragility helpfully add to effectiveness.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the informal economy's role in poverty-reduction and economic recovery in post-conflict and fragile cities. Based on studies of Hargeisa and Karachi, the paper argues for a re-evaluation of the informal economy in supporting post-conflict resilience and recovery.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines livelihoods and survival strategies in post-conflict cities and the role of the urban informal economy in poverty-reduction and economic recovery. The focus is both on displaced people moving into the city, including former combatants, migrants and refugees, and on host communities. Based on a comparison of findings in Hargeia, Somaliland, destroyed by civil war in 1988, and Karachi, widely affected by violent crime, the paper draws on current DFID-ESRC research on Economic Recovery in Post-Conflict Cities: the Role of the Urban Informal Economy, to examine the how the informal economy responds through conflict and its role in supporting economic recovery in fragile cities.

Political upheaval or violent conflict is often characterised by a fundamental failure of governance and economic collapse. An immediate impact of crisis is the destruction of livelihoods and local economies, leading to insecurity, poverty, hunger, and frustration. Problems are often compounded an influx of urban migrants, who may find integration into urban life difficult. Using a pathways framework, the paper will examine structural inequalities of politics, governance, ethnicity, religion, and gender, and individual strategies e.g drawing on kinship or trade networks, or gang monopolies, and the anonymity afforded by working in the city, to examine different livelihood trajectories. The paper argues that both government initiatives and humanitarian assistance miss the potential of what people are already doing to help themselves.